Reducing our environmental footprint is our duty as an economical actor and citizen of the Planet. Part of our Planet impact is driven by our packaging used to deliver our customers all over the continents. We share here our current status on packaging and actions taken to improve in 2 factories in Cork (Ireland) and in Elven (France) among our 6 factories around the world.
Let’s have a look at our standing point for 2021, the actions already in place, and our roadmap.
Where does SOCOMORE stands?
Weight
In 2021 we shipped 355 tons of packaging around the world. 37% of it came from recyclable, reusable, reduced-plastic or made from renewable resources: this is the packaging we qualify eco-friendly. What are we currently doing to improve further the part of this eco-friendly packaging in our activity:
| Packaging material | Quantity |
| Plastic | 36% |
| Metal | 22% |
| Paper / cardboard | 20% |
| Wood | 16% |
| Mixed material | 6% |
Data for 2021 for 2 factories Cork (IE) and Elven (FR)
Packaging source
For our 2 factories in Cork and Elven, 98.1% of our packaging was sourced in Europe in 2021. It came mostly from France, then Ireland, Germany, Italy and UK.
Actions already into place
Cardboard packaging
Today, 100% of our packaging in cardboard is already from responsible and/or recycled sources. We work with partners certifying their cardboard comes from sustainable sourced wood fibers guaranteed. Our packaging is certified FSC Forest Stewardship Council®.
Minimum 50% of our cardboards come from recycled material.
Pallets
SOCOMORE managed to reduce the weight to transport. Last year we reduced from 13 tons the weight on our pallet stock.
To select our pallets we favor short circuits. 100% of the pallets we source are local, coming from a maximum of 50 km.
We also look at the origin of the wood by choosing pallets FSC and/or PEFC certified wood, guaranteeing the sustainable management of French forests.
Rethinking packaging
Today SOCOMORE started to Introduce refillable and reusable packaging.
We use reusable and refillable canisters and buckets (jumbo) with wipes sold in bags. It represents -80% plastics.
Where do we aim to go?
SOCOMORE understands the importance of reducing its environmental impact as a growing company. We are already working on several actions such as: use of eco-designed, bio-based or recycled, reusable or recyclable packaging. We identify 5 areas to work on in the future.
Extraction of raw materials
Transition from a fossil resource to a renewable resource for the raw material of our packaging.
Use of materials - Packaging production
Weight reduction of our packaging by switching to flexible packaging for liquid products (e.g. bag-in-a-box instead of a jerrycan). With this action, the materials can be reduced between a few hundred kilos to several tonnes.
Transport
Reduction of the ecological footprint by favoring short circuits with European suppliers and placing orders in full pallets.
Usage
We chose to combine packaging whose parts are easily separable to facilitate sorting and recycling of packaging at the end user's premises (e.g. bag-in-box). Also we offer packaging allowing a waste-reduction (e.g. presaturated wipes with a reusable canister).
Packaging end of life
Recovery of packaging for:
- recycling: cardboard boxes, glassine labels
- reuse in short supply chains, for our key accounts
Download our leaflet regarding the actions to reduce our environmental impact regarding the packaging point of view.
